The Legend of Ulenspiegel. Volume 1 of 2

Quart stoups, tankards, goblets, glasses, flagons, and pint-pots rang and jingled marvellously. And the good wine rolled in waves down thirsty throats.

During this ringing, and while the wind brought to the ears of Claes from the town, in gusts, songs of men and women and children, he spake once again to the hermit, asking him what heavenly boon these good folk looked to win by these rough devotions.

The hermit answered, laughing:

“Thou seest upon this chapel two carven images, representing two bulls. They are placed there in memory of the miracle whereby Saint Martin transformed two bullocks into bulls, by making them fight with their horns. Then he rubbed their muzzles with a candle and green wood for an hour and longer.

“Wotting of the miracle, and fortified with a brief from His Holiness, for which I paid roundly, I came hither and established myself.

“Thenceforward all the ancient coughers and big-bellies in Meyborg and the country roundabout, persuaded by my arguments, were certain that having once beaten one another soundly with the candle, the which is unction, and with the cudgel, that is power, they would win favour of Our Lady. The women send their ancient husbands hither. The children born by virtue of this pilgrimage are violent, bold, fierce, nimble, and make perfect soldiers.”

Suddenly the hermit said to Claes:

“Dost thou know me?”

“Yea,” said Claes, “thou art Josse my brother.”

“I am,” replied the hermit; “but what is this little man that makes faces at me?”

“It is thy nephew,” said Claes.

“What difference dost thou make between me and the Emperor Charles?”

“It is great,” replied Claes.

“It is but small,” rejoined Josse, “for we do both alike, we two: he makes men to slay one another, I to beat one another for our gain and pleasure.”

Then he brought them to his hermitage, where they held feast and revel for eleven days without pause or truce.

XIII

Claes, when he parted from his brother, mounted his donkey once more, taking Ulenspiegel on the crupper behind him. He passed by the great square of Meyborg, and there beheld, assembled in groups, a great number of pilgrims, who seeing them became enraged and flourishing their cudgels they all suddenly cried out, “Scamp!” because of Ulenspiegel, who, opening his breeches, plucked up his shirt and showed them his nether visage.

Claes, seeing that it was his son they were threatening, said to him:

“What did you do for them to be so angry against you?”

“Dear father,” replied Ulenspiegel, “I am sitting on the donkey, saying no word to any man, and nevertheless they say I am a scamp.”

Then Claes set him in front.

In this position Ulenspiegel thrust out his tongue at the pilgrims, who, roaring, shook their fists at him, and lifting up their cudgels, would fain have beaten Claes and the donkey.

But Claes smote the beast with his heels to flee from their wrath, and while they pursued, losing their breath, he said to his son:

“Thou wert then born on a luckless day, for thou art sitting in front of me, doing no harm to any, and yet they would fain destroy thee.”

Ulenspiegel laughed.

Passing by Liège, Claes learned that the poor Rivageois were starving and that they had been placed under the jurisdiction of the Official, a tribunal composed of ecclesiastical judges. They made a riot demanding bread and lay judges. Some were beheaded or hanged, and the rest banished out of the country, such at that time was the clemency of Monseigneur de la Marck, the gentle archbishop.

Claes saw by the way the banished folk, fleeing from the pleasant vale of Liège, and on the trees near to the town the bodies of men hanged for being hungry. And he wept over them.

XIV

When he came home, riding upon his donkey, and provided with a bag full of patards his brother Josse had given him and a goodly tankard of pewter, there were in the cottage Sunday good cheer and daily feasts, for every day they had meat and beans to eat.

Claes filled often the great pewter tankard with dobbel-cuyt and emptied it as often.

Ulenspiegel ate for three and paddled in the dishes like a sparrow in a heap of corn.

“Look,” said Claes, “he’s eating the saltcellar, too!”

Ulenspiegel answered:

“When the saltcellar, as in our house, is made of a hollow piece of bread, it must be eaten now and then, lest the worms might come in it as it gets old.”

“Why,” said Soetkin, “do you wipe your greasy hands on your breeches?”

“So that I may never have my thighs wet,” replied Ulenspiegel.

At this moment Claes drank a deep draught from his tankard. Ulenspiegel said to him:

“Why have you so big a cup, I have only a poor little mug?”

Claes answered:

“Because I am your father and the baes of this house.”

Ulenspiegel retorted:

“You have been drinking for forty years, I for nine only; your time to drink is passed, mine is come; it is therefore for me to have the tankard and for you to take the mug.”

“Son,” said Claes, “he that would pour a hogshead into a keg would throw his beer into the gutter.”

“You will then be wise to pour your keg into my hogshead, for I am bigger than your tankard,” replied Ulenspiegel.

And Claes, delighted, gave him his tankard to drain. In this wise Ulenspiegel learned how to talk for his drink.

XV

Soetkin carried beneath her girdle the signs of renewed maternity; Katheline, too, was with child, but for fear dared not stir out of her house.

When Soetkin went to see her:

“Ah!” said she, lamenting, “what shall I do with the poor fruit of my womb? Must I strangle it? I would rather die. But if the constables take me, for having a child without being married, they will make me pay twenty florins, like a girl of loose life, and I shall be whipped on the marketplace.”

Soetkin then said some soothing word to console her, and having left her, went home pondering. Then one day she said to Claes: